Malevolence X58 Classified Setup

[Malevolence 6]

personaly i dont like the way intel works now with the new icore 7 or 9 in the future so many socket changes that causes only confusion to customers and technologies that are not sure if will stick arround for years.

 

As shown on my Core i3, i5, i7 and i9 thread. Yup sure sounds very confusing for normal customers. I actually wanted a Core i9 "Gulftown" the last time I said months ago, but I think I have to take it back as it'll be way too expensive for my budget. My bad!

 

 

besides all its too damn expensive the overall system in the end in order to get some extra performance out of those i7.

 

for me the quad core line is the best money/poewr and can bee over clocked and they are arround for some years now and we see that they work prety well, it feels more stable to me, and there is no need now that windows 7 is so better than vista to go for that extra power in i7.

 

i have tested few i7 models, i didnt got WOW, and thats the main reason. there is nothing dramatic and super innovating in them in real life applications/performance, and the all socket changes idea and forcing ddr3 mobos (that are still expensive) makes me hate them even more!

 

differences are Not that WOW and cant be noticed most of the time, besides the encoding, but think about it, pay so much money more for 2-3 minutes faster decoding? is it worth? do you make money out of it that will pay you back?

 

Actually I've done some little homework on the prices recently and thats what I found.

 

The cost of chips itself (from highest to lowest):

Q9650 (stock 3Ghz) Quad

i7 920 (stock 2.67Ghz) Quad+HT

E8600 (stock 3.33Ghz) Duo

Q9550 (stock 2.83Ghz) Quad

 

The prices of Core i7 920 (D0) has dropped since the last time we checked. Surprisingly it has dropped below the Core 2 Quad series., just the 920, not 950 or the extreme, lol.

 

As for the prices of RAMs, 6GB DDR3 rams are dropping and 4GB DDR2 rams are starting to rise. As such its surprising to see the prices of both of them are almost on par. No joking. And no, I wasn't talking about some useless Kingston value rams or sorts, I'm referring to those designed for overclocking and stuff. (Actually its a bit difficult to compare directly because one is triple memory the other is dual memory, but if you just calculate divide by 3 or 2 per stick you see they are somehow similar.)

 

So the point of saying that Core i7 is way too overprice isn't true anymore. A few months back, yea its true, but now, its almost similar.

 

i would buy the card i told or any similar, and i would keep the extra money for later upgrade to dx11 card next summer) if i where you.

 

Yes that was what I intended to do, but, I will prefer an Nvidia card. So most probably the best choice for my graphics card will be a non-referenced GTX 260 216SP 55nm variant. Yes I'll save up for better GPUs once the GTX 300s are out with hopefully DirectX11 and GDDR5 memory or something (as rumored) Hopefully I'll get a couple of those to SLI for improved experience (Crysis for example) and great benchmarking scores or something. By then this one will be recycled as a dedicated PhysX card. But we'll see about that later, not now.

[Fiesta 0]

What the f... wow. Lots of crap on the first page there.

 

a very good thermaltake water kit

 

There's no such thing. NEVER use Thermaltake water cooling, ever. I don't care how well you install it, they use years-old pumps, flimsy blocks that crack and leak, and poor-performing radiators. About the only thing that works well is their reservoirs. The Tai-Chi case is a piece of junk itself anyway.

 

I'll save a recommendation list for a little later, since I'm not sure which New Zealand shop has the best prices.

[Malevolence 6]

What the f... wow. Lots of crap on the first page there.

 

 

 

There's no such thing. NEVER use Thermaltake water cooling, ever. I don't care how well you install it, they use years-old pumps, flimsy blocks that crack and leak, and poor-performing radiators. About the only thing that works well is their reservoirs. The Tai-Chi case is a piece of junk itself anyway.

 

I'll save a recommendation list for a little later, since I'm not sure which New Zealand shop has the best prices.

 

Thanks for the feedback, Fiesta.

 

In regards to cooling solutions, and cases. I just want to be clear that I will not be doing liquid cooling at all even when overclocking. Why? First, I do not have the skills to do custom liquid cooling. You may suggest stock liquid designs such as e.g. Corsair H-50 CPU cooling kit, the performance isn't very great either. Secondly, liquid cooling can be a pain in the a** especially if later in time when I need to change various parts on the rig itself. Thirdly, the cost of liquid cooling is way too expensive, if I include liquid cooling, I may have busted my budget or force to increase my budget.

 

So in conclusion I'll be going every component on air.

 

As for the casing, I always believe its up to an individual's preference. Personally, sorry no offense Johnnyxp64, I do not really like the overall casing you recommended. I am looking for a full size tower casing, and since my components will be cooled by air, it must have good airflow, and most importantly, the intake fan(s) must have dust filters. As for the material build, I'm leaning to Aluminum instead of the generic SECC. Hmm, decisions decisions.

 

And I'm not purchasing my parts from NZ, I guess it doesn't matter anyways. I'm stating the items in NZD for easier reference since this is an NZ site after all.

 

Hope that clears up everything and keep your suggestions coming.

[Fiesta 0]

Well, where'll you be buying from, then? Importing from the US or eastern Asia?

 

(Also, I was speaking directly to Johnny about Thermaltake.)

[Johnnyxp64 20]

come on guys every people is usually sujesting what he/she thinks is better taking as major crtiria their personal likes and dislikes.

and dont be evil i dont own neither the Thermaltake nor Ati, so there is no personal gain in this dear "Fiesta"

 

now to the topic:

i personally like that case and i even order it for my self(got it today), and it is HUGE, it didnt had dust filter (yeah) but i had from the old one and fited perfectly

i also use only air and works superb! and its fans are very very quite.

 

the quality is great on this case and personaly i am in love with it, it was so damn easy to put all my parts in it and cables are very nicly put too.

i may get a photo when i will have time.

 

now for the cpu the i7 920 you like it has less L cahce 8 vs 12 and consumes a little more power, and also will be more costly (at least with the prices i find in eshops)

because it will force you a 1366socket mobo and in order to reach a quality mobo as good as the one i recomended to you, you will pay eventually more

also it support ddr3 up to 1066, not 1333, nor 1666 for future upgrades.

an other negative is that besides the starting price of a 1366 good mobo is 155euros+ i cant see any PCI-X 2.0 support!! you will have such a great card, wasted.

 

from the other hand lets dont hide behind our finger this i7 920 2.66 can be extremely easily overcloacked to 3.00 with no special effort at all and with even the stock air fan, and it will be with the multi-threading technology like having 8 CPUs, ok up to 4 cores its fine and 4 virtual stil ok, it will help multitasking a lot, but this cpu its in the limits of creating bottlenecks.

special reviews found that more than 4 cores are starting to cause problems to an application, and slows it down....

 

the new .NET 4.0 make us creat multi-core application more easily though so this probably will be "solved" in the future.

 

i dont know man, i mean its your money after all not mine

 

when you make it will you post photos fo us?

Edited August 6, 2009 by Johnnyxp64

[Malevolence 6]

Well, where'll you be buying from, then? Importing from the US or eastern Asia?

 

As mentioned briefly earlier, I'll be buying various parts from various shops in town, which is pretty accessible from my place. They do contain a variety of items, from America's EVGA brands to Asia's Palit brands, just to name a few.

 

i personally like that case and i even order it for my self(got it today), and it is HUGE, it didnt had dust filter (yeah) but i had from the old one and fited perfectly

i also use only air and works superb! and its fans are very very quite.

 

the quality is great on this case and personaly i am in love with it, it was so damn easy to put all my parts in it and cables are very nicly put too.

i may get a photo when i will have time.

 

Congratulations on your purchase. Please share with us some snapshots of your purchases and your rig as well.

 

now for the cpu the i7 920 you like it has less L cahce 8 vs 12 and consumes a little more power, and also will be more costly (at least with the prices i find in eshops)

because it will force you a 1366socket mobo and in order to reach a quality mobo as good as the one i recomended to you, you will pay eventually more

also it support ddr3 up to 1066, not 1333, nor 1666 for future upgrades.

an other negative is that besides the starting price of a 1366 good mobo is 155euros+ i cant see any PCI-X 2.0 support!! you will have such a great card, wasted.

 

from the other hand lets dont hide behind our finger this i7 920 2.66 can be extremely easily overcloacked to 3.00 with no special effort at all and with even the stock air fan, and it will be with the multi-threading technology like having 8 CPUs, ok up to 4 cores its fine and 4 virtual stil ok, it will help multitasking a lot, but this cpu its in the limits of creating bottlenecks.

special reviews found that more than 4 cores are starting to cause problems to an application, and slows it down....

 

the new .NET 4.0 make us creat multi-core application more easily though so this probably will be "solved" in the future.

 

Intel has 3 types of sockets, the old LGA775 (Pentium, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad), the upcoming LGA 1156 (Lynnfield i5 i7 etc), and the LGA 1366 (Xeon, i7 "Bloomfield", i9 "Gulftown")

 

Socket types will not be an issue for me as I'm getting a new chip and a new motherboard chipset, in fact I'm open for whichever that sees fit for me.

 

And the talks of Core i7, I have no idea what's the fuss with the Hyper Threading technology. If you think its too much threads for you, you can always disable HT in the BIOS setting. If you think 4 cores are too much I think you can disable one or a couple of cores if you want. (Not sure about it? Someone please correct me. But seriously who would want to disable cores?!)

 

What do you mean no PCI express 2 slots in X58 chipsets??? If there aren't any PCI express 2 slots how do enthusiasts do Tri-SLI or even Quad-SLI or Crossfire on their Core i7 rigs?

 

I also don't understand what you meant when you said that Core i7 will create bottlenecks?!?

 

I believed Intel has solved the issue that more cores will slow the processor down, as such their upcoming Core i9 "Gulftown" has 6 Cores 12 threads (in case you didn't know).

 

 

when you make it will you post photos fo us?

 

I will definitely post interesting snapshots and stuff once everything is in place. But first I need more input here!

Edited August 6, 2009 by Malevolence

[Johnnyxp64 20]

i didnt say MT or MC is bad on the contrary is great and helps multitasking, BUT todays application when tested in Multicore amd Multithreading machines with good benchmarks they found out that you get the best possible performance up to 4 Cores and 4 threads, above that the application started to give lower results!

 

thats all. nothing bad in the CPU is just the programmers didnt had the tools to creat applications that will actually take advantage of a multi-core system, but now with .net 4 things will be much better! i love you Microsoft

 

now about the PCI-X not been 2.0, i searched again very closly this time:

i have to apologies but this site had a typo mistake and they dont explain it clear, so i head to gigabyte.com.tw and

its ok x58 express or not support 2.0 pci-x

 

 

Congratulations on your purchase. Please share with us some snapshots of your purchases and your rig as well.

 

tnx!

This is my primary system, i will not take photes yet i need few things to upgrade in there first, maybe add some blue led etc

http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?showtopi...mp;#entry166478

 

but i can show you pictures from my secondery system AMD FX60 with 4GB ram that was taken 3 years ago in my old house.

now i use a GF 9800GT in this and a philips DVI 19'' monitor and there is no more cable spaghetti

 

Edited August 6, 2009 by Johnnyxp64

[Malevolence 6]

Nice rig, but you need to do some cable management.

 

I still do not understand what you meant by not having PCI-E 2.0? Isn't that blue thing PCI-E 2.0?

[Johnnyxp64 20]

the images you show is from my SECOND case pc and not primary and its 3 years old in the old house there are no cable problem anymore ;-) and this is not my primary system.

 

about the pci 2 i read over this online shop that x58 express didnt have pure pci x 2.0 only the x58 did, but i checked again in gigabyte and i saw that it was a mistake from them(eshop), the x58 express supports pci x 2.0

 

so forget the "doesnt support pci 2" its does. i read wrong info i wrote wrong info. sorry.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Johnnyxp64

[Doctor Destiny 41]

I run a PCI-E x16 2.0 card using a PCI-E x16 1.0 slot and have no problems at all. You don't need to worry too much about compatibility issues with PCI/E/x16.

[Fiesta 0]

X58 provides 32 PCI-e 2.0 lanes, and Lynnfield CPUs will provide 16 PCI-e 2.0 lanes. Just to clear that up. P55 boards in general seem to want to split those into 8x8 for half-bandwidth SLI and Crossfire (yes, nVidia is providing official SLI support again).

[Johnnyxp64 20]

I run a PCI-E x16 2.0 card using a PCI-E x16 1.0 slot and have no problems at all. You don't need to worry too much about compatibility issues with PCI/E/x16.

 

 

yeah thats totally correct mine is working like that with no problems at all.

[Malevolence 6]

Finally that has been cleared up. LGA 775, LGA 1156 or LGA 1366. Hmm...

[Doctor Destiny 41]

1366, purely for futureproofing. i7 will dominate the market soon enough, and become a standard. Prepare early instead of being forced to upgrade later on. It might be a teeny bit expensive but it's really no more than high-end 775 Quads.

[chitzkoi 0]

hmm ur rig. I have built my own comp, i'm not a freak really but not too bad lets see.

 

i'd go with a intel i7 chip, though the new amd chips are wicked, i have one x4 940 or 945 i think haha cant rem. good bang for buck get the amd, go 'spider chipset', everything amd, cuz they can talk better:P processor, gcards, etc

 

-a high quad or dual core. amd x4 945, i dont really know intel personally

-8gig ddr3 ram, OCZ is real good lifetime warranty too

-64gb SSD (primary boot drive) OCZ, $266 CDN, a little $ but quick for having ur OP system on. sorry dont know what NZD exchange is

-Samsung 32mb cache 7200 1TB (storage) or something similar

-ati 4890 x2 (2 of em, crossfired) expensive but who cares? you couldnt get much better than that, great bang for buck

-motherboard, anything Gigabyte, with lots of options. Asus 6pt is good too, little $$$ tho. ALWAYS spend money on a good motherboard, and make sure it is future tech friendly! dont cheap out and get one that you cant use any upcoming tech on, waste of time and then you have to change too many things around, which will then be a waste of mula

-umm what else

 

for a case, you dont really need to go mineral,water or gas cooled, i just have like 6 fans that are uber quiet in my thermaltake Armor case

-Noctua is a Austrian company that makes insanely quiet and wicked fans, that I would highly recommend. i overclock quite a bit, and I have yet to need something different than air cooling My case is pretty much a wind tunnel

 

except for the case, hdd, ram, and processor the rest are kinda $$$ but sick

 

what you think? this is what i would do, cuz i'm familiar with these brands and these units.

 

- But if you are serious about video and audio editing, get a MAC. In these categories they are the easiest to use and have the best program options

 

-Direct x 11 should be sweet when it comes out

 

peace m8. and just take it easy people on the criticisms

[Fiesta 0]

-Noctua is a Austrian company that makes insanely quiet and wicked fans, that I would highly recommend. i overclock quite a bit, and I have yet to need something different than air cooling My case is pretty much a wind tunnel

 

Noctua's fans are grossly overrated. Noctua bloats static pressure ratings on their fans, and the plain truth is they do badly on heatsinks and radiators, with exception to Noctua's tower coolers where they had to space the fins VERY far apart to actually allow the fans to move air at all. They're also ass-ugly and extremely expensive. Avoid.

[Malevolence 6]

1366, purely for futureproofing. i7 will dominate the market soon enough, and become a standard. Prepare early instead of being forced to upgrade later on. It might be a teeny bit expensive but it's really no more than high-end 775 Quads.

 

LGA 1366 it is!

 

hmm ur rig. I have built my own comp, i'm not a freak really but not too bad lets see.

 

i'd go with a intel i7 chip, though the new amd chips are wicked, i have one x4 940 or 945 i think haha cant rem. good bang for buck get the amd, go 'spider chipset', everything amd, cuz they can talk better:P processor, gcards, etc

 

AMD is nice, their processors sounds wicked, but their board and layouts stinks. Meh. And the talk of Intel Core i7, alright Core i7 it is.

 

 

-a high quad or dual core. amd x4 945, i dont really know intel personally

-8gig ddr3 ram, OCZ is real good lifetime warranty too

-64gb SSD (primary boot drive) OCZ, $266 CDN, a little $ but quick for having ur OP system on. sorry dont know what NZD exchange is

-Samsung 32mb cache 7200 1TB (storage) or something similar

-ati 4890 x2 (2 of em, crossfired) expensive but who cares? you couldnt get much better than that, great bang for buck

-motherboard, anything Gigabyte, with lots of options. Asus 6pt is good too, little $$$ tho. ALWAYS spend money on a good motherboard, and make sure it is future tech friendly! dont cheap out and get one that you cant use any upcoming tech on, waste of time and then you have to change too many things around, which will then be a waste of mula

-umm what else

 

for a case, you dont really need to go mineral,water or gas cooled, i just have like 6 fans that are uber quiet in my thermaltake Armor case

-Noctua is a Austrian company that makes insanely quiet and wicked fans, that I would highly recommend. i overclock quite a bit, and I have yet to need something different than air cooling My case is pretty much a wind tunnel

 

except for the case, hdd, ram, and processor the rest are kinda $$$ but sick

 

what you think? this is what i would do, cuz i'm familiar with these brands and these units.

 

- But if you are serious about video and audio editing, get a MAC. In these categories they are the easiest to use and have the best program options

 

-Direct x 11 should be sweet when it comes out

 

peace m8. and just take it easy people on the criticisms

 

Thanks for sharing with me your thoughts and recommendations, chitzkoi.

 

Updating my personal list to search for a good motherboard.

 

Noctua's fans are grossly overrated. Noctua bloats static pressure ratings on their fans, and the plain truth is they do badly on heatsinks and radiators, with exception to Noctua's tower coolers where they had to space the fins VERY far apart to actually allow the fans to move air at all. They're also ass-ugly and extremely expensive. Avoid.

 

I've heard of Noctua fans and their silent reputations. However I ain't the guy looking for silent stuff, more focus on performance, and possibly visual. My pirorities are as follows:

Performance > Visual > Silent

Besides, I never like their brown and beige colored fans, so, meh. I'll probably lean towards Scythe 2000rpm fans (3000 too loud) or if necessary, some Zalman LED fans for both performance and visuals.

 

The talk on heatsinks. I believe Thermalright is an excellent brand of heatsinks, so most probably I'll get one of their heatsinks, since I'll overclock my rig anyways.

[chitzkoi 0]

True Noctua's fans are ugly but they are quiet.

 

I have a Zalman heatsink, it is awesome! the one with full fin with large fan inside it common design I know. But with the design of my case it becomes a wind tunnel.

 

My bro has a Noctua heatsink and all fans and I think the design is a bit better for cooling (on the pipes). The only reason he went with Noctua is for his Audio recording computer, to make it stupid quiet. So Noctua everywhere, and a special very quiet tower

 

One thing that is a relatively newer idea, because of the creation of more special tower cases, is to have larger (12" +) side exhaust and intake fans They turn a lot slower than 2000 rpm and can push more air, with it being quieter! (as long as its a good fan) Yay! The cases I believe are expensive though, anyway you go you have to spend money to get good cooling

 

Yes 100% get a good motherboard! That's the number one thing to spend money on. Bad motherboard, 'you're gonna have a bad time. If you fall down, you're gonna have a bad time.' LOL Southpark Episode: Aspen

 

No problem (for posting my recs) glad to be of help. You should be able to pick out what you need with everyone shooting each others recs down. Only a few have survived the onslaught The I7

 

Peace m8

 

[Malevolence 6]

True Noctua's fans are ugly but they are quiet.

 

I have a Zalman heatsink, it is awesome! the one with full fin with large fan inside it common design I know. But with the design of my case it becomes a wind tunnel.

 

My bro has a Noctua heatsink and all fans and I think the design is a bit better for cooling (on the pipes). The only reason he went with Noctua is for his Audio recording computer, to make it stupid quiet. So Noctua everywhere, and a special very quiet tower

 

One thing that is a relatively newer idea, because of the creation of more special tower cases, is to have larger (12" +) side exhaust and intake fans They turn a lot slower than 2000 rpm and can push more air, with it being quieter! (as long as its a good fan) Yay! The cases I believe are expensive though, anyway you go you have to spend money to get good cooling

 

Yes 100% get a good motherboard! That's the number one thing to spend money on. Bad motherboard, 'you're gonna have a bad time. If you fall down, you're gonna have a bad time.' LOL Southpark Episode: Aspen

 

No problem (for posting my recs) glad to be of help. You should be able to pick out what you need with everyone shooting each others recs down. Only a few have survived the onslaught The I7

 

Peace m8

 

Thank you chitzkoi. It's alright if people start shooting each others recommendation. Just keep it light and don't take it to heart too seriously, shouldn't be a problem.

 

Update!

 

My priority in rig building is as follows:

 

Performance > Visual > Silent

 

Thanks to everyone for their participation, as such, I manage to narrow down my choices. Here are the rough specs as follows:

 

• Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 2.67Ghz
• ??? good X58 Motherboard (ASUS, DFI, EVGA, Gigabyte etc?)
• ??? 2GB x 03pcs DDR3 1600Mhz RAM at ?-?-?-?? timings
• Thermalright TRue Black
• Artic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound
• Thermalright Fan Holder
• Thermalright Fan Holder
• Zalman 120mm ZM-F3 1,800rpm ± 10% [No installation of Noiseless Connector (RC56)]
• Zalman 120mm ZM-F3 1,800rpm ± 10% [No installation of Noiseless Connector (RC56)]
• ??? GTX 260 216SP (non-reference design)
• Western Digital 640GB Caviar Black (OS and programs)
• Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black (Backup)
• ??? 24X DVDRW Optical Disc Drive
• ??? 700W 80+ PSU
• Lian Li Full Tower Aluminum Casing ??? Model

 

Remember, cake* will still be awarded to whoever that has the best recommendation.

 

Keep your suggestions coming.

 

Thank you.

Edited August 9, 2009 by Malevolence

[Fiesta 0]

Looks like you've got it figured out pretty well (those Zalman fans are quite nice, btw). I'll let you decide what you want for most of those as far as specifics go, but for RAM, motherboard, and power supply, here are some choices to consider:

 

For RAM, anything from Corsair, G.Skill, Patriot, OCZ, Kingston, Mushkin, and GeIL. Look for timings 8-8-8-24 or below, at any frequency below 2GHz so you have someplace to go if you decide to overclock the RAM (1600MHz is the sweet spot).

 

For the power supply, Corsair's 750TX is extremely popular and a VERY good power supply for the money. If you prefer, you can get the 750HX, which is half-modular, 90% efficient under load (sometimes trickling out slightly higher percentages if the load is over 400 watts), and overall just plain better. The price premium might be discouraging, though, so you can choose whichever you want, you won't go wrong either way.

 

For the motherboard, either Gigabytes's EX-58-UD4P, Foxconn's Blood Rage*, Asus' P6T, or eVGA's straight-black X58 board (can't recall the model name, but you'll know which one I mean when you see it).

 

*The Blood Rage has a well-known little brother, the GTI, which cuts some of the fanciness off the MOSFET cooling, removes the modular aspect of the chipset cooling, which in turn eliminates the water block, clip-on fan, and DICE/LN2 pot from the package, removes the Firewire controller and ports, and removes the SAS controller and ports. The GTI is typically 20-30 dollars cheaper than its big brother, so choose based on needs.

[Johnnyxp64 20]

nice choice,

 

love the WD hdd drive you chose , Western digital is faster by far.

 

now the timmings what ever you choose Kingstone (lifetime warranty) or OCZ will have great timming, just make sure you get RAM chips with Passive cooling on them.

so you go totally for 6gb?

 

plz overcloack the CPU to 3.0 GHZ

 

get a Gigabyte Mobo.

 

and start build dude we want Photos! for all the parts and then how you put them together

then go play some C&C and enjoy Graphics

oh btw setup your VGA driver to x4 Anisotropic Filtering and only 2x to Antialising you will get so much sharpen 3d textures but with nice curves and you will not loose Frames on this system.

[Fiesta 0]

The TRUE Black with a ZM-F3 will allow MUCH better than 3GHz, so why stop there?

[Malevolence 6]

Thanks Fiesta and Johnnyxp64 for your recent replies.

 

For RAM, I guessed any DDR3 1600Mhz 8-8-8-24 should suffice. And since most RAMs are lifetime limited warranty, it shouldn't be a big issue. I guessed for that I'll go for the cheapest 2GBx03pcs for now.

 

For Graphics card, I'll be sticking to a single card and no SLI etc until on a later date.

 

For PSU, going for something with modular, and 80+ bronze, silver or gold rating. I'll check out for bundle promotions and such models of PSU and Graphics card may change.

 

For the motherboard, either Gigabytes's EX-58-UD4P, Foxconn's Blood Rage*, Asus' P6T, or eVGA's straight-black X58 board (can't recall the model name, but you'll know which one I mean when you see it).

 

Lol, Fiesta, you meant EVGA SLI X58 LE? Sure I'll look into it. Kinda fond of getting the EVGA brand motherboards.

 

Yes for the Thermal TRue Black with push-pull configuration, I can get beyond 3Ghz, I believed 4Ghz is even possible as many Core i7 users are using it.

 

Have you guys heard of Lian Li casings? Their brand are pretty reputable and their casings are pretty classic and pretty solid.

 

Surprise is coming soon. Do check it out.

[Johnnyxp64 20]

no i havent seen that case you talki about, if you have any link with nice picture post it.

 

now about SLI , well i used to have sli with 2x 8800 GT, to be honest in our days the hardware is SO powerfull in single cards that you dont need tospend money and have an extra noisy fan, and an extra hardware that causes high temps in your case.

 

beyond that sli drivers with some games still have issus, and generally doesnt worth the "risk" so you are thinking right for staying with this one nvidia you choose.

 

if i remember correctly the i7 920 doesnt fully support 1600 fsb so somehow your rams will automatically slow down and wait the cpu to utilize all of the data, but thats fine, you can just incresse the fsb from your cpu to 1600 and be totaly synchronized with your rams with a simle overcloack, or you could just keep it that why and when you will upgrade again in the future your cpu you will not need to change and the rams

 

[Fiesta 0]

if i remember correctly the i7 920 doesnt fully support 1600 fsb so somehow your rams will automatically slow down and wait the cpu to utilize all of the data, but thats fine, you can just incresse the fsb from your cpu to 1600 and be totaly synchronized with your rams with a simle overcloack, or you could just keep it that why and when you will upgrade again in the future your cpu you will not need to change and the rams

 

What in th... Core i7 does NOT use a front side bus. Total block of misinformation there. It uses the QPI link to the southbridge and has a direct connection to the chipset, which regulates PCI-e lanes that are allocated to graphics. The reason 1600MHz is the sweet spot is because to get around 4GHz you need a certain BCLK/voltage/uncore multiplier ratio, and that ratio works BEST with RAM clocked at 1600MHz (effective).

 

And yes, Malevolence, I did mean the eVGA X58 SLI LE. I knew you'd figure out which one it was. As for cases, Lian Li is the best widely-available case brand on the market, with Silverstone and Cooler Master coming quite close.

 

Since you want the PSU to be modular and highly efficient, then go straight for the Corsair 750HX. One of only a handful of PSUs on the market that actually does achieve 80 Plus Gold efficiency under load and heat, and the modular cabling works extremely well.

Edited August 10, 2009 by Fiesta